SPRING
WRITES REIBLI ROAD
Today,
on the way to school, I was struck by the sculptural quality of the oaks, of vines,
and hills. Perhaps the clarity and angle of light makes things seem more real. Or
is it because the wild cherry-plums have suddenly declared their hiding places,
small white plumes along the undergrowth and along the riverfields. Signs of escaped,
or abandoned civilizations, the progeny of Europe and Asia Minor blooms in
Californian fields. Opportunistic mustard burns the retina—acid-yellow flecked
with green. Small riots of narcissi and daffodils declare miniature kingdoms. Freesias,
drops of pioneer blood scattered in the fields, inheritors of the abandoned homesteads.
Soon, the native lupines will dress the hills with indigo robes, columbine and larkspur
embroidered in the folds, and the poppies will blazon each shoulder. The distant
snore of a bulldozer punctuates the dominion of someone’s dreams.
The
lazy slant of books eases towards the horizon. Goldfish, small birds in the
dark water rush up a ladder to the sky. The heart of a blue whale weighs more
than one ton. The clock pushes time westward in increments of one. A student
gathers endless space in his eyes. My mind is made of small golden chains. Too
many hands on the world. Invisible forces shape the poem as much as what is
there.
Outside
the driveway, the acacias explode into sunlight; the teachers asks why the kids
are so crazed. The air, laden with honey needs no explanation. My desire more
focused; I want to offer my breasts up in a gesture that is timeless. A man
hauls branches to the field, their dark shapes inscribe the sky with a random
hope for a spring that will never come. The incense of smoldering apple
clippings, like the fragrance of blossoms trapped in wood. Another European
settler, the apple. We even brought bees to this continent. From the cradle of Mesopotamia,
the acacia, once revered as a sacred wood, no longer frames our doors.
A
flock of crows in the bare branches seem out of place—too large and too dark.
They are winter’s memory, the darkness of the soil. A triad of horses; the appaloosa’s
flecked coat, like the reverse images of stars. Hungrily, he pulls at weak
winter grass that creates a deeper hunger, and is not satisfied. The word satiated is related
to satisfaction. The Greek word
for witness is martyr. The
reintroduction of the horse to the Americas almost saved the Indians. President
Woodrow Wilson married the great-granddaughter of Pocahontas. I read Chief
Seattle’s letter to President Harding to to my young students. We talk of differing
world views, and write our own poems to the earth, to the distant drumming of hammers.
What will nourish their children?
I
don’t stop to take photos; too late for this valley—a slice of Americana
threatened by the encroaching estates. Only poems to outlast memory. Perhaps a
daughter of the developers, hungering for something more, will read them and
ask, “Daddy, what happened to the mustard fields blooming as far as the eye could
see? Where does memory go when there’s nowhere left to go?”
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